The Most Anticipated Books Of October 2022

Oct. 1

The Goddess Effect, Sheila Yasmin Marikar’s debut novel, is a wellness-retreat thriller in the vein of Nine Perfect Strangers. The story centers on Anita, who leaves New York for LA, hoping to give her life a facelift. There, she attends the Goddess Effect, an exclusive workout class led by an ultra-cool girlboss named Venus. Anita soon finds herself brought into the fold of the Goddess Effect’s faithful, and she even lands an invite to Venus’ wellness retreat. But all is not as it seems in the Golden State, and Anita will soon find out what the Goddess Effect is really about.

Oct. 4

For years, abducted Black girls have been brutally murdered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but no one seems to care. No one, that is, except for Liz. And when Liz comes back to town for a wedding, only to find herself in the midst of a chilling abduction case, she’ll have to race against time to save the missing girl from the evil lurking in the woods.

Oct. 4

The Keeper of Night introduced readers to Ren, the mixed-race inheritor of two fearsome legacies — that of the Japanese Shinigami and the British Reaper. After her fellow Reapers exiled her from London for her Shinigami abilities, she returned to Japan, where she became the Japanese Goddess of Death. The Reapers aren’t through with Ren yet, however, and with the British Goddess of Death creeping closer to Japanese shores, Ren will have to make a deal with another god to keep her country safe.

Oct. 4

Diya thought she lost the only living relatives she had when her parents died in a car wreck. So when strange letter arrives in the mail, claiming that Diya has a whole family of distant relatives in India, she wastes no time planning to visit them. Once she meets her newfound relatives, though, Diya also learns of a curse that’s plagued her ancestors for generations... and may be responsible for her parents’ accident.

Oct. 4

From the author of You Let Me In and The Garden of Spite comes this new thriller about two former friends and the ghost whose story haunts them both. Writer and researcher Cathy has devoted her life to studying Ilsbeth Clark — a young woman who was accused of witchcraft and subsequently drowned by her neighbors centuries ago. When Cathy’s ex-best friend, Elena, returns to sell her family’s ancestral home, she also feels the call of Ilsbeth’s spirit... and her longstanding rivalry with Cathy quickly spirals out of control.

Oct. 4

Isla Larsen Sanchez grew up spending summers in Puerto Rico with her grandmother, but she never knew about her family’s magical powers... until she inherited them for herself, after her grandmother’s death. All of the sudden, Isla begins having visions of her ancestors’ stories — and at first, it’s a delightful way to connect with her heritage. Things start to get bleak, though, when the tale of an unsolved murder begins to follow her everywhere.

Oct. 4

Last year, S.T. Gibson’s tale of Count Dracula’s first bride was independently published in the UK; now, it gets its U.S. release from Redhook. A Dowry of Blood centers on Constanta, an impoverished young woman living in medieval Europe who gets a second chance at life when Dracula resurrects her. Constanta owes everything to her beloved count — but can she stand aside after learning that he’s also capable of unspeakable acts?

Oct. 4

Seventeen-year-old Jo has one chance to leave the bleak, irradiated Ashes — the only home she’s ever known — far behind her. To get out, she’ll have to impress the wealthy representatives of New Georgia, any one of whom might offer her the opportunity to come out in high society. It’s easier said than done, though — not least because a troubled teenager from a wealthy New Georgia family has decided to make Jo absolutely miserable.

Oct. 4

U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo returns to stores this month with Catching the Light — a must-read for any fan of poetry and literature. This new memoir contains Harjo’s ruminations on a half-century of writing and activism.

Oct. 4

Rory never planned to return to her hometown, but when her pregnant twin sister, Scarlett, was abandoned by the baby’s father, Rory answered the distress call. A strange animal attacks Rory shortly after she arrives, seemingly confirming her fears about coming home. She survives the ordeal, but the attack leaves her changed — stronger, more attuned to the lunar cycle, and oddly wary of silver.

Oct. 4

In Loudermilk, Lucy Ives introduced readers to a man accepting an award for his poetry — despite the fact that he’d never written a poem. Ives’ Life Is Everywhere also takes place in the surreal world of academia, following Erin, a Ph.D. candidate who takes shelter in her university’s library following the dissolution of her marriage. Erin brings three manuscripts — two of which are her own, as-yet-unpublished works — to the library with her, perhaps intuiting that they hold the answers she’s looking for.

Oct. 4

Whenever Mallory is around a large group of people — even a dozen or so at a birthday party — someone inevitably winds up murdered. She’s never committed the crime herself, and she almost always solves the case, but she feels responsible for the carnage all the same. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to move to a sentient space station with almost no humans onboard, she doesn’t hesitate — the thousands of aliens who live there aren’t affected by her apparent curse, after all. But when a shuttle full of humans makes its way toward the space station, Mallory must prepare to face her 19th murder.

Oct. 4

The unnamed narrator of Elizabeth McCracken’s latest novel — a thinly-veiled work of autofiction — is conflicted about how best to memorialize her late mother. As a writer, the narrator desperately wants to put her mother’s life story on the page, she fears what might happen if she doesn’t, given that her childhood home is now on the market. But her mother was an intensely private person, and she also worries that publishing her life story would be tantamount to betrayal.

Oct. 4

Our Missing Hearts imagines a near future where the U.S. government passed a series of laws designed to uphold “American culture,” and children of dissidents are taken from their homes to be placed with other, more patriotic families — a practice that overwhelmingly targets Asian American children. Bird, a 12-year-old Chinese American boy, has grown up in this political climate. His linguistics professor father has been reassigned to a job as a library page, and any discussion of his mother, who vanished years ago, and her “unpatriotic” work is forbidden. When he receives a strange message, though, Bird will answer the call, setting out to find his long-lost mother and the truth about her disappearance.

Oct. 4

This brief novel from the author of The Hole is told in three connected stories, all of which feature characters navigating the intricacies of fertility and relationships in modern-day Japan.

Oct. 4

Two major problems collide on Mingheria — a fictional island-state in the Ottoman Empire — at the turn of the 20th century in this new novel from Snow author Orhan Pamuk. Mingheria’s population is evenly split between Muslims and Orthodox Greeks, and each half of the island is quick to blame the other for the plague that’s just begun to ravage their people. To quell the brewing civil war, the Ottoman Sultan sends two quarantine experts to Mingheria, but is forced to take other, more drastic measures when their efforts fail.

Oct. 4

Chloe Kwon’s parents run a Korean restaurant in the Riverwood Mall food court, where their biggest competitor is the Chinese spot run by Peter Li’s family. Chloe and Peter have bigger problems than their own rivalry, however, because a condo developer has just bought the mall. If the new owners go through with their plans to demolish Riverwood, the Kwons and the Lis will be out of business — leaving Chloe and Peter with no choice but to work together to keep their families afloat.

Oct. 4

Ecuadorian author Gabriela Ponce Padilla makes her English-language debut with a translation of her novel Sanguínea, called Blood Red in English. The story here closely follows one woman navigating the end of her marriage. She narrates her post-marital experiences in a stream of consciousness, from her late-night experiences in the city to her many love affairs — and, above all, her newfound trypophobia.

Oct. 4

Haven’s late father was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, so finding an unpublished manuscript among his papers isn’t exactly a surprise, but there’s something very different about this one. The horrors Haven finds in Bedtime Stories for Monsters are so striking that she starts to draw scenes from the manuscript, secretly hoping that she can publish the book with her illustrations. When it becomes clear that her father’s stories may not be entirely fictional, though, Haven will have to dive deeper into his work to avert disaster.

Oct. 4

If a company could tell you when you would die, would you want to know? This prequel to They Both Die at the End follows Orion and Valentino as they navigate their remaining days on Earth. Each signed up to learn their time of death for different reasons — one because of a health condition that will almost certainly shorten his life, the other because he almost lost his twin in an accident. After making a connection, however, Orion and Valentino realize that their time together will be incredibly short... and one of them will be forced to go on living without the other.

Oct. 4

Lord Treadway’s family members have been the stewards of the prosperous island Lute for many years. His new wife, an outsider named Nina, is unfamiliar with Lute’s customs, and she at first dismisses the Treadways when they mention The Day — the time every seven years, when the island claims seven lives on the summer solstice. Those deaths, they say, guarantee everyone else’s safety and survival in the seven years to come. When The Day finally comes, and Nina realizes it’s more real than she wanted to believe, she’s forced to wonder: Does it have to be this way?

Oct. 4

Mariko Tamaki’s contemporary Anne of Green Gables retelling casts Anne as a queer, Japanese American disco fan who sticks out like a sore thumb in the backward town of Greenville. Anne’s adoptive moms have already been mostly ostracized by the homophobic townsfolk, and their pragmatic new daughter doesn’t find it any easier to fit in. At least, not at first. Anne eventually finds two people she clicks with: her best friend, Berry, and a shy cutie named Gilly. Anne wholeheartedly believes that she and Gilly are meant to be... but is she overlooking the girl who could become more than a bosom friend?

Oct. 4

After a serial killer dies by suicide, leaving his remains somewhere at the bottom of a foggy canyon, a true-crime podcast launches a creepy contest to find his bones — a contest that brings together three young women, each of whom harbors a macabre fascination with the killer. Lucy would have been the Cloudkiss Killer’s final victim if fate had not intervened. Carolina worries that she may be more like the killers on her favorite podcasts than she cares to admit. Maggie would like everyone to think she’s just interested in writing her psychology paper on true-crime fans, but she’s hiding plenty of skeletons in her closet. They’re all looking for different things in the misty canyon, and none of them are prepared for what they’ll find.

Oct. 4

After an Asian American police officer kills a Black man in New York City, Reed — a 21-year-old Asian American man from Los Angeles — feels compelled to drop out of Columbia University and join the growing antiracsist movement. His mother was an activist in her youth, so why shouldn’t he join the cause? She understands his desire all too well, but she’s determined to make him do a little self-examination before he leaves Columbia behind.

Oct. 4

Anne K. Yoder’s debut imagines a near-future world in which Big Pharma seems to hand-pick the haves and have-nots. The Enhancers follows Hannah, a high-school student whose Valedictorian prescription practically guarantees her academic success — and that’s not to mention the pills she borrows from her friends, each of whom benefit in different ways from the drug therapies available through their school psychiatrist. But when a fire at the local pharmaceutical plant destabilizes life in their hometown, the girls run away to join an off-the-grid commune — a decision that brings new challenges their way.

Oct. 4

Once upon a time, Cheng Gong and Li Jiaqi bonded over the similarities in their family histories — and a mystery that concerns their parents and grandparents. Now reunited as adults, they’re determined to finally uncover what happened at that abandoned water tower 30 years ago.

Oct. 11

Conventional wisdom tells Cameroonian women that, if they are patient, things will get better. But patience didn’t help Safira when her husband of 20 years took a second wife. It didn’t help the 17-year-old girl he married, Ramla, who wanted to wed someone her own age and had dreams of going to pharmacy school. And it certainly didn’t help Ramla’s obedient sister, Hindou, who did what was expected of her and wound up married to an extremely violent man. They’re all victims of circumstances beyond their control... so why does everyone blame Safira, Ramla, and Hindou for their suffering?

Oct. 11

When she was adopted by her Cameroonian aunt and white French uncle as a baby, Vanessa A. Bee left her native Cameroon for the French countryside. Later, circumstances eventually led her to relocate again — this time to Reno, Nevada — when she was in her early teens. In Home Bound, Bee, now a Harvard alum and lawyer, ruminates on home, identity, and belonging — and how those concepts are complicated by race, religion, and international borders.

Oct. 11

This debut essay collection from Indelicacy author Amina Cain examines how writers’ lives are affected by their work. Drawing from Cain’s own experiences and those of the authors she admires — which include Elena Ferrante and Marguerite Duras — A Horse at Night is a must-read for any literature lover.

Oct. 11

Americans can’t agree on how, exactly, our higher-education system is failing students. Is it because we pushed too many students into “useless” humanities degrees, or because we devalued the humanities in favor of STEM fields? In The Visible Unseen, chemist and author Andrea Chapela uncovers the wide swathe of common ground between science and art, proving that any perceived divide is a farce.

Oct. 11

Life is getting increasingly hard in the near-future Philadelphia where Saturnalia is set, as the city grapples with climate change and a failing economy. The Saturn Club offers a rare chance at upward mobility for Philadelphians — specifically for occultists willing to play its political games. But Nina left all that behind, and she’s done well enough for herself (with the help of a Saturn Club branded tarot deck), even if she sacrificed her connections to the rich and powerful. When an old Saturn Club friend makes a request she cannot refuse, though, Nina is thrust back into the a web of arcane intrigue.

Oct. 11

Andrea Hairston’s Will Do Magic for Small Change, the sequel to her novel Redwood and Wildfire, was nominated for both the James Tiptree, Jr. and Lambda Literary Awards upon its initial, independent publication in 2016; now, newcomers have a chance to read it, thanks to this rerelease from Tordotcom. The story here centers on Cinnamon, an aspiring actor from a showbiz family, who must solve a 100-year-old mystery connected to her ancestors.

Oct. 11

Keely and Mick Solimene, an American couple, adopted 4-year-old Loan and her best friend Nhu from a Vietnamese orphanage in 2002. They renamed the girls Isabella and Olivia, respectively, and raised them in the Chicago suburbs. But their mother couldn’t stop thinking about Isabella’s identical twin sister, Hà, who went to live with relatives in Vietnam when the twins’ mother could not care for them. Erika Hayasaki lays out what happened to both twins, and what their story can teach us about family, nature and nurture, and adoption.

Oct. 11

In 1961, Charlayne Hunter-Gault became one of the first African American students to attend the University of Georgia (an experience she recounted in her 1992 memoir, In My Place). She went on to pave a distinguished career as a journalist, with her work on the 1986 PBS NewsHour special, Apartheid’s People, helping expose the cruelties of South Africa’s racist regime — and earning her the first of two Peabodys. In My People, Hunter-Gault revisits her storied career and examines the institutional racism that continues to oppress the Black community in America today.

Oct. 11

Nora McInerny publishes her fourth memoir this month. Bad Vibes Only follows McInerny’s 2019 The Hot Young Widows Club, which revisited the incredibly painful span of weeks in which she experienced a miscarriage and lost both her husband and father to cancer. This time, she’s giving readers a tongue-in-cheek look at how toxic positivity can lead any #Girlboss to burn out.

Oct. 11

Dinosaurs, the latest from A Children’s Bible author Lydia Millet, is a heartstrings-tugging novel readers won’t soon forget. The novel centers on Gil, a wealthy New Yorker who flees to Phoenix after a devastating breakup. There, he lives next door to Ardis and Ted, who dwell in a literal glass house. Thanks to this view into their lives, Gil’s world begins to mesh with Ardis and Ted’s.

Oct. 11

Alan Moore is best known for creating Watchmen and V for Vendetta; with Illuminations, he takes his first plunge into short fiction. Here, readers will find an exquisite mix of science fiction and fantasy, and stories brimming with sex, weirdness, and the arcane.

Oct. 11

Catriona Ward’s second novel won both the Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Awards after its UK publication in 2018. Now, U.S. readers can finally get their hands on this immersive work of gothic horror. Set on the Scottish island of Altnaharra, Little Eve follows its eponymous protagonist as she prepares for the return of the Adder — the mysterious and mighty deity her clan worships. Tradition says that someone on Altnaharra will inherit the Adder’s powers, and Eve is determined to make herself its heir, no matter the cost.

Oct. 11

Something to Talk About author Meryl Wilsner returns to stores this month with Mistakes Were Made, a sapphic age-gap romance. During Family Weekend at Cassie’s college, she wants to be anywhere but on campus — so she buys an attractive older woman named Erin a drink at a bar and goes home with her. It’s the perfect one-night stand... until the next morning, when Cassie goes to breakfast with her bestie and winds up face-to-face with Erin.

Oct. 18

The bonds between three siblings in a Muslim American family are tested when their parents pass away in this new novel from the author of If They Come for Us. Firstborn daughter Noreen must take on the unexpected responsibility of helping to raise her younger siblings, Aisha and Kausar, even though it’ll prevent her from pursuing her dream of an independent life. Kausar, the youngest, was already in the midst of questioning her gender identity at the time of their parents’ deaths, and now she’s grappling with her sexuality and religion as well. Stuck in the middle is Aisha, who’s left trying to keep herself, Noreen, and Kausar together, even as their individual paths begin to pull them apart.

Oct. 18

Croi has grown up in the Wilde Forest, where her and her fellow brownies are shielded from human eyes. She has little magical ability, so great adventures aren’t in the cards for her. But something changes within Croi when she receives a book containing the secrets of the Higher Fae and their Otherworld, and she discovers that she isn’t a brownie at all. Someone wanted her to forget who she was and where she came from. But who? And — perhaps more importantly — why?

Oct. 18

Luke Dani Blue’s debut collection contains 10 short stories, each of which centers on characters who find themselves torn between the bodies they have and the bodies they want — some of which may not even be bodies at all. At a time when trans literature is under fire, this is a must-read.

Oct. 18

Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel, It Ends with Us, has become a BookTok favorite. Now, Hoover is finally telling Atlas’ side of the story in It Starts with Us.

Oct. 18

The eponymous hero of this David Copperfield retelling is a red-headed stepchild. Born to an unwed teenage mother in a single-wide trailer in rural Virginia, 11-year-old Demon Copperhead lived with his mom and stepfather until his parents’ opioid use landed him in foster care. He spends years bouncing from place to place, moving between the homes of relatives and local celebrities, sometimes managing to find periods of stability amongst the chaos. But the specter of opioid addiction is never far off, and everything Demon Copperhead manages to build for himself may soon come crashing down.

Oct. 18

In Lech, several lives become hopelessly entangled during one hot summer in the Catskills. Beth rented a room in Ira “Lech” Lecher’s house on Murmur Lake to get some breathing room for herself and her young son, following a secret abortion and a rough patch in her marriage. Nearby, Tzvi supplies the community with drugs and tries to escape the lake’s grisly legacy — a legacy that includes the death of his mother. Meanwhile, Lech is carrying on an affair with Noreen, a much-younger real-estate agent whose teenage daughter is plotting her escape from the Borscht Belt.

Oct. 18

Chelsea Manning faced 35 years in prison in 2013, when she was convicted of distributing thousands of classified military records. Called a traitor by some and an activist whistleblower by others, Manning was eventually freed when then-President Barack Obama authorized her release in 2017. In README.txt, Manning juxtaposes her fight for government transparency with her struggle to achieve autonomy as a trans woman in federal prison.

Oct. 18

Things could hardly get any worse for Isabel. After an ill-advised workplace affair forced her to move abroad, she was ready to begin work on her Ph.D. in Scotland — but her would-be advisor’s accidental death threw a wrench into her plans. To add insult to injury, a new colleague has a book coming out on Isabel’s exact dissertation topic, which means she’ll have to find a new research niche to fill if she wants her doctorate. And to top it all off, Isabel’s old college chum, Rose, has just gone missing — and Isabel will have to flex her research skills if she wants to find her.

Oct. 18

Years ago, the Queen of Chandela saved Katyani’s life, and Katyani has grown up knowing that she would one day be called on to protect the Queen’s son, Ayan. Now, with threats mounting against Chandela’s royal family, Katyani’s been asked to accompany Ayan and his cousin to complete their training at a distant monastery. But will a handsome face prove to be a deadly distraction for Katyani?

Oct. 18

Pepper Rafferty was adopted as an infant, and she’s known the identity of her biological mom — a famous painter named Ula Frost — ever since she was a teenager. She’s kept it a secret for more than 20 years, due in no small part to Ula’s rumored mental illness: The artist claims that her subjects meet their other selves — variants from parallel realities — after she paints them. There’s no way that can possibly be true... but the more Pepper thinks about Ula’s reputation, the more she has to wonder: Is there a universe out there in which they were never parted?

Oct. 18

The latest rom-com from the author of The Right Swipe and Girl Gone Viral centers on Mira, an accountant who finds her budding relationship tested during a trip to Las Vegas. Mira is 36, and just wants to settle down with a fellow homebody. English professor Naveen seems to fit the bill, but just as they begin to connect, Mira’s aunt passes away, and she’s called to Sin City to make arrangements. Somehow, what should have been a quick trip turns into a madcap night of hacking, kidnapping, and heists — and Mira begins to wonder: Is she too adventurous for “boring” Naveen?

Oct. 18

Under Fire author April Ryan returns to store shelves this month with Black Women Will Save the World, a new book that weaves together historical events, snippets of the author’s life, and profiles of prominent figures to examine the profound impact Black women have had on the United States as a whole.

Oct. 18

George Saunders’ first short-story collection in nearly 10 years contains nine stories that deal with the personal and the political. No matter whether he’s writing about three people forced into indentured servitude, an octogenerian brainwashed into becoming a political operative, or two women reexamining their relationships with the same man, Saunders always illuminates his characters’ interiority to great effect.

Oct. 18

This breakout collection from Fever Dream author Samanta Schweblin finally receives its English translation this month. There’s a house in every one of these stories, and each is missing something — something that makes a house a home. As in her other work, in Seven Empty Houses, Schweblin takes a long, hard look at the intricacies of human connection.

Oct. 18

Sarah Wilf had been drinking on that fateful night in 1985, when her younger brother, Theo, drove them home — and crashed right in front of their house. In a split second, the teens’ friend was dead, and the idyllic façade of life on Division Street was shattered forever. The trauma of that night shapes the next 35 years in the lives of the Wilf children and their father, Ben — a doctor, who was at the scene of the accident that day.

Oct. 18

Chris, an astronaut, is surprised when he receives forwarded emails from his old employer, which had been sent to his defunct email address. He’s even more surprised when he realizes that they contain video diaries and messages, sent by a stranger named Hallie. Turns out, Hallie is his ex’s wedding planner, and she got the hots for Chris after accidentally receiving old videos of him. It doesn’t take long for Hallie and Chris to start to bond online — but is their romance too far-out to work in the real world?

Oct. 25

Chen Tien-Hong fled Taiwan for Berlin when he realized he couldn’t ever meet his conservative family’s expectations. Years later, he returns home after serving time for the murder of his boyfriend, only to find that most of the large family he left behind is long gone. Few of his seven sisters remain, and those who do are haunted by their own perceived failures — after all, none of them were the son their parents wanted. As Tien-Hong makes peace with the ghosts of his past, the story of how his boyfriend wound up dead comes spilling out.

Oct. 25

This sequel to Scapegracers opens on Sideways Pike, a teen witch left alone and without magic after her crush, Madeline, robbed her of her specter — the very essence of her spellcasting ability. Madeline only took Sideways’ specter because her own was stolen by the Chantry Boys, and she’s just planning to borrow it until she can take hers back and punish the thieves. Sideways is along for the ride, sort of, thanks to the psychic link that connects her to the specter Madeline stole... and things are about to get a whole lot more complicated for both of them.

Oct. 25

Abyan, a hijabi teen, knows she has a higher calling. She and her friends at Carlisle Academy are responsible for taking down the Nosaru — a vampiric alien race that preys upon humankind. When the Nosaru kill a member of Abyan’s team, though, a series of events are set in motion that lead Abyan to question the Academy, and to learn what the Nosaru really want.

Oct. 25

A teenager with a knack for military strategy takes center stage in this new series-starter from the author of Descendent of the Crane and The Ones We’re Meant to Find. It’s 18-year-old Zephyr’s responsibility to lead Xin Ren’s underpowered armies to victory over the imperial regent, Miasma. To save Ren’s followers, Zephyr goes undercover as a double agent at the heart of Miasma’s empire. But pulling off her gambit means convincing Miasma’s strategist, Crow, that she isn’t a threat, and that may be easier said than done.

Oct. 25

Getting mortals to sign away their souls is Peyote Trip’s main job. He needs to convince one more human to make a deal to get the promotion he’s been eyeing, and there’s a bonus in it for Pey if that human turns out to be one of the Harrisons. You see, Pey has already acquired four souls from the Harrison family, and getting one more would give him a “Complete Set” — a goal Pey’s been chasing for 1,000 years.

Oct. 25

In his first novel since 2006’s The Road, Cormac McCarthy introduces readers to Bobby Western — a salvage diver suspected of stealing a body from the wreckage of a plane crash. Bobby’s on the run from the authorities, but he’s more haunted by his family history, which involves the atom bomb and an institutionalized sister he can’t ever stop thinking about. A companion novel, Stella Maris, is due out later this year.

Oct. 25

Two young Black women must flee their backward hometown at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in this new novel from the author of All Her Little Secrets. There’s no way that Jackson, Mississippi’s Jim Crow courts will let Violet get away with killing a white man, even if he did rape her. So she vanishes, and by the time the police approach her older sister, Marigold, to ask about her whereabouts, Violet’s long gone. And anyways, Marigold has her own problems — including an affair and a resulting unplanned pregnancy — to worry about. As Violet takes refuge in Georgia, Marigold runs to Ohio, but neither of them can truly be safe in 1964 America.

Oct. 25

Larimar transforms into a ciguapa — an ill omen in Dominican culture, which takes the form of a beautiful, nocturnal woman with backward feet — every full moon. Naturally, Larimar feels like a total outsider... until she meets Ray, a punk-rock baker who takes a shine to her. Just as her relationship with Ray is getting off the ground, however, Larimar learns that her employer is about to open a new bakery across the way from Ray’s — forcing her to choose between her job and her beau.

Oct. 25

The third book in Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle is Into the Riverlands. This new novella follows Chih, a cleric who collects stories for posterity, as they seek out stories about ghostly martial artists who dwell in the riverlands. But Chih and their companion are walking into the middle of a generations-long feud, and it isn’t long before they pulled into the history they sought to record.

Oct. 31

Jess is desperate to escape her abusive ex and build a stable new life for herself and her daughter, Izzy. Her new job caring for Flo — the wealthy, ailing owner of the vicarage known as Nerthus House — could be their ticket out of danger. But Nerthus House is full of terrors, as Jess is about to learn.